Related Pages

Match Report

Cardiff 62 Newport 17 (HT:36-3)

Newport lurched from one disaster - home defeat to Llanelli - to another with a woeful performance against the old enemy at Cardiff Arms Park. The stats speak for themselves :

P3 W1 L2 Points 46-128 and Tries 4-18 - three of these tries have been scored by winger Elliot Frewen.

Few Newport players can hold their heads up after this disgraceful performance - yes Cardiff were bolstered by the addition of Blues players - as many Blues players as Cardiff RFC in the 23 -and had an outstanding back-row of Macauley Cook, Thomas Young and MOM Rob Copeland and one again Newport were hit by injuries - captain Gethin Robinson 32 mins, centres Dan Robinson 16 mins and Adam Davies 41 mins - but there can be no excuse for this performance. Woeful tackling, decision making, passing and in general the basics all helped Cardiff play them off the field.

After just 1 min Cardiff cut through to put captain Shaun Powell over. The reliable Gareth Davies converted and then kicked a penalty on 10 mins and Newport were 10-0 down. From here on it was one way traffic as time and time again Cardiff cut Newport to pieces. Tries came from scrum-half Rob Lewis, full-back Dan Fish, 2nd row Nick White and centre Richard Smith. Davies added 4 conversions and 1 penalty for HT score of 36-3 with the visitors only score a Scott Sneddon penalty on 22 mins.

7 mins after the restart rep wing Will Hodnett making his official debut evaded several tacklers to score a neat try weaving his way over from 40m out. Sneddon's conversion made the score 36-10 but normal service was resumed as Cardiff ran in 4 further tries from Rob Lewis, MOM Rob Copeland and Macauley Cook (2).

To the credit of some of the Newport players and even with a disorganised back line they continued to play and this resulted in an excellent try from winger Elliot Frewen - after a neat off-load by prop John Lavender - who evaded several tacklers with a 60m run in finishing off by rounding the full-back to score under the posts on 82 mins. Ironically Newport looked to have two dangerous wingers in Frewen and Hodnett but time and again their moves came to nothing as all too often lost their way and usually the ball !

Worryingly for Newport their injury list once again is mounting with a crisis at prop - Robinson, Jones, Jeffries and Morgan all injured with Dai Pattison on a red card.